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Academic Year 2005/2006

Writing Historical Biography/Biographical Fiction
HIST 344 SP
Crosslistings:
AMST 305

This highly structured seminar and intensive writers¿ workshop offers students the chance to write serious historical biography and biographical fiction. In addition to reading a vast range of distinguished writers and conducting independent archival research, students will share their writing with one another in sessions designed to sharpen their skills as stylists, researchers, and narrators. Some writing exercises will be traditional, others more experimental. The seminar will have readings in common, with longer biographies assigned to¿and purchased only by¿individual students, who will present on their chosen biographies to the seminar. Final projects will be submitted in installments of three, and peer critiqued. There will be two guest speakers. Instructor¿s permission to register is required.

MAJOR READINGS

Tentative List:

Evan S. Connell, MR. BRIDGE
Robert Dallek, AN UNFINISHED LIFE: JOHN F. KENNEDY, 1917-1963
Joseph J. Ellis, HIS EXCELLENCY: GEORGE WASHINGTON
Peter Gay, FREUD: A LIFE FOR OUR TIME
Stephen Greenblatt, WILL IN THE WORLD: HOW SHAKESPEARE BECAME SHAKESPEARE
R. W. B. Lewis, EDITH WHARTON: A BIOGRAPHY
Robert K. Massie, NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA
Diane Middlebrook, ANNE SEXTON: A BIOGRAPHY
Lytton Strachey, QUEEN VICTORIA
Stella Tillyard, ARISTOCRATS: SARAH, EMILY, LOUISA, AND SARAH LENNOX, 1740-1832
Colm Toibin, THE MASTER

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Weekly writing assignments, plus a final piece of thirty pages--nonfiction or fiction.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Applicants to the course must submit a short writing sample--no more than ten pages of nonfiction or fiction--to the Department of History by noon on Monday, December 6.
This is a drop/add course; the class list will be posted outside the professor¿s office, PAC 414, no later than Monday, December 20.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS HIST    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006

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